Kairi's Story
by Izumi San
Summary: What happens to Kairi directly after the end of Kingdom Hearts...
1. Kairi's Awakening

**Chapter One: Kairi's Awakening**

Setting: Directly after the ending of Kingdom Hearts.  
  
Kairi simply smiled as she looked at the finished product of her cavewall carving.  
  
"Now I know you'll always be with me Sora..." tears whelled up in her eyes, and quickly wiped them away with her hand. Standing up, Kairi looked at the door, which she knew would now be closed forever. She walked towards the door and placed her hand over the spot where the nob used to be. Suddenly, the door started turning white underneath her hand. She instinctively jerked her hand away, but the color continued to spread throughout the door.  
  
"Wh-what's happening?" Kairi stepped back and realized what had happened. Before, Riku and Sora were the only ones who could make the door react, and that was because they were the chosen ones- chosen personally by the Keybalde.  
The door began to glow where Kairi's hand had once been. A bright beam of light then shot out from its palm and head straight for Kairi.  
  
Her eyes opened widely, but she quickly shut them and put her arms up as if in defense. When she noticed that nothing seemed to be happening, she slowly lowered her arms and opened her eyes. She then covered her mouth and looked around in amazement. She was surrounded by a translucent bubble that seemed to shine a white light from the inside. She reached out her hand to touch the side of this strange barrier and notcied that she could go through it quite easily, so she stepped out and looked around.  
  
Everything checked out normal. Then, her gaze stopped on the bubble. She could see what seemed to be her reflection, but what she saw couldn't be real...she looked back down at her own self to make sure she was really still the same. She lifted her arms and her eyes grew wide as she fell silent.  
  
"How...when?" she looked herself over. Her arms were covered in white sleeves with purple embroidery. She quickly looked back up at the reflective bubble. It showed her in a white robe that consisted of a short white train with purple embroidery beautifully stitched throughout the outfit. She also had a hood on.  
  
Kairi turned, still looking at her reflection, and noticed something hanging out of her hood...a scroll! She quickly snatched it to find but a short message inside:  
  


_Kairi- Please use this to prepare for my return._

  
She looked down to see it signed _Your Oathkeeper_.  
  
Kairi thought a long while trying to figure out what this message could mean.  
  
"What are you trying to tell me -Sora?", she whispered. 


	2. Realizations

** Chapter One: Realizations**

Kairi scanned the piece of parchment for any other clues or messages. She found only one:  
  


_PS- Look behind the door._

  
"Look behind the door...: Kairi repeated the phrase, "what could he be talking about?" She thought for a moment about all the doors on the island. "Let's see, there's the Shore Shack, Storage," she counted the places on her fingers, "and...oh, the Secret Place! Duh, Kairi.." She bustled over to the door and hesitantly placed her hand on the outer rim for balance. Kairi swung aorund to see what could be there.  
  
A smile crept across her face and she bent down to pick up the gift. "A staff..." Kairi whispered, almost to herself. She ran her hand upwards over the polished wooden shaft. The neck swung around to make an oval net with a wooden rim. In the center of the net was a piece of cloth in the shape of a paopu. She stood up and swung the rod around a few times to get a feel for it. The staff was actually very light, which was good. Kairi decided to practice more outside. Maybe she would show Wakka and Tidus, or could practice with Selpihe! Kairi stopped in her tracks... she had forgotten that their worlds were now seperate. She couldn't show them what Sora had given her, tell them about what had happened after that night on the beach, or even that she was okay now. A few tears fell from Kairi's eyes...it was a hard truth to face, her friends were gone.  
  
"GRRRWWLLL!", her stomach growled quite loudly. She hadn't really noticed that she was hungry until now, seeing as everything she had been through, having her heart stolen, having her clothes change out of nowhere, and all. She looked down at her staff, the net looked like it would make an okay fishing rod for the moment. The only problem now would be fishing without getting her new robe wet...she'd have to take it off. She turned around to look for a place to put it...the dock steps looked okay. Underneath her robe was a white outfit that appeared to be a surfsuit. Kairi thought it was a bit strange that she had a surfsuit underneath her robe, but she was glad for it just the same and headed over to the water. Slipping off her shoes, she stepped into the cool water with staff in hand. Lucky for her it was sunny out, so the fish were gathering near the shore. She tested out a few techniques for catching the fish, but none worked. The swoop was either too slow or scared off the fish.  
  
She decided to take a break and go find a cocnut and firewood. Neither were hard to find since they were littereed all over the beach. She cracked open the cocnut and started a small fire.  
  
Kairi sat on a palm leaf she'd found while gathering supplies and now a breeze began to blow. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. What was she going to do now that she was alone on the island? She realized that she'd have to figure out more things to do by herself now, which didn't sound all that fun. Kairi was more of a people person.  
  
When she opened her eyes again, it was already getting dark. "Did...did I fall asleep?" Kairi sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Guess I should go inside, it'll be getting cold soon. She grabbed her robe and shoes and headed to her room. Changing quickly into some dry PJs, she decided to grab her sleeping bag along with some other stuff to "camp out" in the Secret Place for the night. By the time she was done setting up it was pitch black outside. "Better start another fire now," but before she could, she saw a bright light behind her. She turned around to see the bubble from earlier that day.  
  
"Oh," she said a little surprised, "this looks like it will work instead." Kairi wondered if she change the intensity of the light, since she was getting sleepy again and the lgith was kind of bright. "Ummm...dim?" Kairi said, sounding very foolish to herself for talking to a bubble. To her amazement the bubble complied and weakened its light.  
  
"Where in the world did you find this thing, Sora?" she chuckled to herself. She ate the rest of the cocnut she had found earlier and snuggled into her sleeping bag. The events of the past couple of weeks raced through her head.  
  
Why were the heartless ever created? What happened to Riku when the door was shut? Where was Sora? "Sora..." she smiled. She knew he'd come back for her...someday. 


	3. Message in a Bubble

** Chapter Three: Message in a Bottle**

Kairi woek up the next morning to the hum of the ocean waves crashing against the shore. As she slowly opened her eyes, still heavily in sleep mode, they focused on the bubble from the day before, which was directly in front of her and had shrunk quite a bit since she last saw it. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. Picking up the orb was surprisingly easy, as it seemed to be that when shrunken, the bubble solidified. Kairi examined the sphere, turning it slowly in her hands.  
  
"I wonder why this thing shrunk so much...maybe it stayed lit for so long last night that it um...ran out of battery?" The next thing Kairi noticed was that the orb was flashing bright red for a few seconds and then began to fill with what seemed to be a crimson mist.  
  
At this point, Kairi had stopped turning the orb and focused on the center of the sphere, where the red mist seemed to be clearing. she could hear voices coming from the inside of the orb, and was almost certain a figure could be made out...  
"Ack stop hitting me! I don't care if you ARE the king, if you ruin Kairi's present I'll seriously cream you."  
"Oh, don't worry about this thing. It's made out of white steel, it won't break even if I hit you all day, see?"  
"Owe! Hey look...is this thing on now?"  
"Yup, it's been on for a few minutes."  
"You mean Kairi's going to see this? She'll think I'm a total dork! Awe man, maybe we shouldn't send this..."  
  
King, what king? Who were these people, and what were they talking about? One of the voices sounded familiar to Kairi, but she couldn't quite put her finger on who it was since the figure was still fuzzy through the clearing mist in the orb.  
"Come on Riku, we've got to tell Kairi why we sent this stuff to her. I'm sure seeing us in a little orb is kinda strange."  
Kairi's palms began to get a bit warm. "Riku..." she remembered the last time she'd seen him. It was right before those huge ivory doors closed and she saw Sora with a worried look after Riku told him something.  
  
"Alright I'll start." Riku said as he shoved the figure beside him.  
  
"Is...," Kairi squinted at the figure shown on the orb, "is that a mouse?"  
  
"No, I think it would be proper if I talked to her first." The figure shoved back. "Hello there Kairi, my name is King mickey and I'm the king of Disney Castle. As I'm sure you've noticed, neither Sora nor Riku are back on your island. This is because Riku is currently with me. As for Sora...I'm not sure of his current whereabouts. We're in the process of looking for him, though it could take a while considering the rift we found..."  
"Hey, are we allowed to tell her about that?" asked Riku. "The rift I mean."  
"I'm the king, I can tell her whatever I want." Mickey answered and turned back towards the screen. "After we closed the door to the heartless Riku and I prepaired to fight for all worlds, but we could sense that something was terribly wrong. You see, every time we tried to attack a heartless...it would disappear. We continued to attack the horde, but they would simply disappear. Eventually, they were all gone. At this point, we weren't sure what to do, so Riku went to see how far the chamber continued. He came back fairly quickly and told me what he'd found which was--" Mickey was cut off by an impatient Riku.  
  
"Kairi, you probably won't believe this, but as Mickey said earlier, we found a rift in the worlds! To be more specific, everything is still connected, but only at the End of the World. We actually figured we could travel to worlds like--"  
  
"Ahem!" Mickey glared at Riku, then turned back towards Kairi and his expression relaxed. "Well, since Riku has explained almost everything in a nut shell, I don't have much else to say, except to explain your weapon.This," he held up Kairi's staff, "was custom made for you by Cid and the Moogles at the Synthesis Shop of Traverse Town. Aerith was kind enough to find the items needed, so you can bet this baby'll pack a punch!" Mickey swung the staff in a downward slash for emphasis. "Right now the rod is in Attack Mode, so it's compact and the net is tightened. In this mode, your physical attacks will be brutal and sometimes critical. The second mode is Elemental, which will greatly raise your Max MP and summoning power. What is summoning you ask? It's calling on a special creature to help you during battle. In fact, I think we've got an extra for you! Riku, will you check?" he turned to the young man.  
  
"Yeah, sure." Riku reached into his right pocket and pulled out several small spheres about the size of large marbles. The looked like very small versions of the orb Kairi was currently holding.  
"Um...let's see..." Riku fingered through them. "Ah, here we go!" he handed the king a metallic blue one.  
  
"Oh," Mickey looked it over, "Tinkerbell, good choice," he turned back towards Kairi. "you should be able to find this at the center of your orb once this tape ends and the bubble enlarges again. I'm sure you're wondering how to use these and modes. Well, the more you train, the more modes and summons you'll receive. There are a total of five known modes: Attack, Elemental, Heartfelt, Defender, and Theif, thought I'm sure you'll find more throughout your journies. Which reminds me, I've sent a friend of yours to bring you to my Castle for personal training from my dear friends Merlin and Leon! I would send you to Merlin's home in Traverse Town, but considering the events of the past few weeks, I feel my world would be the safest for you to be at this point. Oh my!" Mickey seemes to be looking right below the orb, "we're almost out of time! Well..um...I suppose Leon and Merlin will have to explain how to use summons and whatnot when you arrive at Disney Castle. Good luck, Kairi!"  
  
"Wait, what about my turn?!" Riku yelled frantically. "I---Kairi!" the image of her friend disappeared and the orb returned to its normal color.  



End file.
